VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Philippine communist leader Jose Maria Sison died on Friday night at the age of 83 after a two-week confinement in a hospital in the Netherlands, his party said on Saturday.

Sison is the founder of the Philippine Communist Party, whose military wing - the New People's Army (NPA) - has been waging an armed rebellion in one of the world's longest-running insurgencies. The conflict between the NPA and the Philippine government has killed more than 40,000 people.

"The Filipino proletariat and toiling people grieve the death of their teacher and guiding light," the party said in a statement on its website.

The self-exiled communist leader has lived in Europe since the late 1980s, after his release from jail following the fall of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, whose namesake son was elected president in a May election this year.

Sison was put on a U.S. terrorist list in 2002, preventing him from travelling.

The party said Sison died peacefully at around 8:40 p.m. (1240 GMT) on Friday after being confined in the hospital in Utrecht. It did not give a reason for Sison's confinement.

"Even as we mourn, we vow (to) continue to give all our strength and determination to carry the revolution forward guided by the memory and teachings of the people's beloved Ka Joma," the party said.

Sison was also known as Joma. "Ka" means comrade.

President Marcos' predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, had prioritised ending the conflict with the NPA when he took office in 2016, but he abandoned peace efforts, infuriated by repeated rebel attacks during the talks

At its peak, the NPA had 25,000 armed fighters, but now has about 2,000, the military has said.

Following Sison's death, the Department of National Defense (DND) called on the "remaining few believers ... (to) turn their backs on the violent and false ideology" of the Communist Party.

"The greatest stumbling block of peace for the Philippines is gone; let us now give peace a chance," the DND said in a statement. (Reuters)

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced on Saturday that his party would dissolve two provincial assemblies next week, earlier than scheduled, in an attempt to build pressure on the federal government to hold early general elections.

Khan has campaigned for snap polls since being ousted from power in a parliamentary vote in April, which has heightened political uncertainty in the South Asian nation even as it struggles to stave off financial default.

Khan's party controls two of the country's four provincial assemblies. The other two are controlled by his political opponents, who also control the federal government under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and who have said they will not hold national and local polls before they are due in November 2023.

"Next Friday (Dec. 23), we will dissolve the Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa assemblies," Khan said while addressing a gathering of his supporters in the eastern city of Lahore.

Punjab, controlled by Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, is the country's most populous province and makes up nearly half of the country's population of 220 million.

The dissolutions could create a fresh constitutional crisis in the country.

Historically, polls for the federal and provincial governments are held at the same time in a general election every five years. If the two provincial assemblies are dissolved earlier, separate polls would have to be held for them within 90 days, which could throw up legal problems.

Khan, who was injured in an apparent assassination bid last month, said he was "sacrificing" his two provincial governments for the sake of the country's future.

He added that elections in the two provinces would mean holding polls in 66% of the country, and so the government might as well hold general elections. (Reuters)

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, who has said she is leading a transitional government, urged the country's Congress to pass a proposal to bring forward general elections in a news conference from the presidential palace on Saturday.

Boluarte, formerly Peru's vice president, assumed the presidency earlier this month after leftist ex-President Pedro Castillo tried to illegally dissolve Congress and was arrested.

Since then, protests have broken out across the country, and at least 17 people have been killed. Another five have died of indirect consequences of the protests, according to authorities.

Boluarte on Saturday countered protesters asking for her to step down, saying "that does not solve the problem" and that she had done her part by sending the bill to Congress.

On Friday, Peru's Congress rejected the proposed constitutional reform to move elections forward to December 2023. Some members of Congress have called for the legislature to reconsider the proposal.

"I demand that the vote to bring elections up be reconsidered," Boluarte said, criticizing Congress members who had previously abstained from voting.

She also dismissed calls for a constitutional assembly, saying it was "not the time." Some leftist leaders have called for the assembly, which would redraft Peru's 1993 constitution, to boost the state's role in the economy.

Boluarte said there would be a reshuffling of her Cabinet in the coming days as well, following the resignation of the education minister and culture minister Friday.

"We will have a recomposition of the Cabinet, to be able to install knowledgeable ministers in each sector," she said.

The Cabinet departures Friday raise questions about the longevity of Boluarte's government, which has been rocked by political turbulence.

Protests since the arrest of former President Castillo, who is in pre-trial detention while facing charges of rebellion and conspiracy, have crippled Peru's transport system, shuttering airports and blocking highways.

On Wednesday, Boluarte's government announced a state of emergency, granting police special powers and limiting citizens' rights, including the right to assembly.

Protesters have also blockaded Peru's borders, leaving tourists stranded and strangling trade.

"We want the immediate closure of Congress; we want the resignation of Dina Boluarte," Rene Mendoza, a protester at the border with Bolivia, told Reuters. "Today the Peruvian people are in mourning... The whole of Peru is in a struggle." (Reuters)

Secretary of the Ministry of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Arif Rahman Hakim invited stakeholders to provide ideas and inputs in a bid to improve the Cooperatives Bill.

"According to Law Number 13 of 2022 on the Second Amendment to Law Number 12 of 2011 concerning the Formation of Legislation, it is mandated that all stakeholders should be invited to play an active role and participate in the formulation of policies in the field of cooperatives," the ministry's secretary noted in an official statement here on Saturday.

Hakim remarked that the ministry requires inputs, especially for strategic issues that should be enhanced, such as for ratification of the deed of establishment, statutes, and bylaws, as well as strengthening the function and role of supervision of the savings and loan cooperatives.

The other issues include prudential principles and investment restrictions, limitations on the management period and cooperative capital ownership, cooperative capital rearrangement, criminal sanctions, and member protection.

He expressed optimism that the regulation, which is formulated jointly, would become a legal basis that can be applied for at least the next 25 years.

Deputy for Cooperatives at the ministry Ahmad Zabadi stated that the bill is an effort to develop Indonesian cooperatives to become strong, healthy, independent, and resilient.

He remarked that the reform of cooperatives is a structural change that is conducted through renewal or change of regulations to adjust the business and institutional anatomy of cooperatives to be more adaptive to changing times as well as the development of a cooperative ecosystem that supports cooperatives' growth and development.

Moreover, he assessed that the development of various technologies is inevitable and must be used as an opportunity for cooperatives to grow and develop.

Currently, the development of industries has offered new insights and pushed changes in people's behaviors in producing, distributing, and consuming goods and services.

"The globalization era also requires agile cooperatives with business networks that are strong and integrated with national and global supply chains, as well as firm in implementing cooperative identity," he stated. (Antaranews)